This research, by means of critical reviews of published materials and examples from Canadian systems, examines concepts of environment, recreational need, carrying capacity and systems planning which are central to the planning of park systems. Considerable attention is given to the values of the conservation movement and to the conflict between the goals of park planning authorities which are responsible for both the conservation of particular attributes of natural environment and the enhancement of opportunities for recreation in the countryside. It is suggested that the carrying capacity of a park system, and of its component parks, is related to the structure of the system and that this structure is a product of the conflicts which occur over the allocation of priorities for recreation, conservation and other competing uses of the land. Some ecological analogies are discussed and two case studies presented to emphasise the importance of competition. The first study examines the background to the proposal for a Park System for Scotland and the subsequent adjustments made to it in response to consultation with competing interests in the Scottish countryside. The second study examines the role of similar competing interests in an example of one element of the proposed park system, namely, the Pentland Hills Regional Park.

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Tourism is being appreciated for its plentiful positive (e.g.) economic impacts upon worldwide destinations. Even so, its uncontrolled development has caused a number of negative (e.g.) sociocultural effects which have led to the concept of tourism sustainability to be in the spotlight. Rural tourism was sought by global destinations as a sustainable form of tourism which could revive rural communities. One such destination which sought tourism diversification while acknowledging the potential benefits of rural tourism is the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Being concerned with uncontrolled tourism development especially in the coastal areas, the official bodies of the island implemented the agritourism program. Through its promotion the destination sought tourism diversification and economic regeneration of the countryside. However, the success of the program may be argued, on the basis that it has only achieved low occupancy rates. In view of this, researchers note that the success of any tourism sector requires guest satisfaction achievement. Yet it appears evident that there is a lack of an investigation of agritourist satisfaction, while the answer to the question ‘how can agritourist satisfaction be achieved’ still remains elusive. In fact it seems that the agritourist satisfaction process has escaped the attention of global tourism researchers and demands further exploration. Knowledge gaps can be detected in the three stages involved in this process: the ‘pre-travel’, ‘at-the-destination’ and ‘meta/post-travel’ stages. This is reflected in worldwide academics’ incessant demands for additional research in the area of agritourist satisfaction and the need to appreciate agritourists in terms of what motivates them to travel, what they value the most while at the destination and what their post-travel behavioural intentions are. That being established, this study entails an ethnographic investigation of the agritourist satisfaction process by using the island of Cyprus as a case study. The purpose of the study is to investigate the satisfaction process of agritourists with the intention of gaining further insights about these tourists and provide in no uncertain terms an answer to the question of how their satisfaction can be achieved. For this reason the researcher employs ethnographic techniques as a shift from traditional tourism research in order to get as close as possible to those under investigation. The methodological approach involves a combination of informal interviews, dozens of casual conversations, an active participation in the daily lives of the participants (agritourists) as well as an observation of their daily routine. The ethnographic study which lasted more than a year was brought to an end once some degree of redundancy was achieved. Fieldwork findings reveal for the first time several niche groups of agritourists (e.g. ‘authenticity seekers’ and ‘gastronomics’) who have been pin-pointed based on the occasion for visiting the rural areas. Agritourists appear to be well informed in regards to their upcoming experience. The differing occasion for countryside visitation, the information derived from various sources as well as past experiences, all append towards the formation of agritourists’ expectations which are found to differ according to the individual. Different sub-groups of guests focus their attention on dissimilar offerings while at the rural setting, hence, different factors are critical for the success of differing occasions. Agritourists seem to take for granted both ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ aspects of their experience. The destination hence is faced with the challenging task of addressing and satisfying basic/low and high needs and expectations of a well informed, sophisticated and demanding market. General satisfaction was only expressed by those who felt that they had covered their physiological and psychological needs and expectations while on top of that experienced the unexpected pleasant element. Of note is the fact that revisit intentions were only expressed by those who remained satisfied with their experience. The findings lend a hand to the provision of important and specific recommendations towards international rural destination managers and practitioners (e.g. hosts). The study provides useful guidelines on how to cover the basic and high needs and expectations of agritourists and how to pleasantly surprise them. These suggestions are of great value to those involved in the rural tourism sector since through these they may satisfy and foster the positive behavioural intentions of their guests. Finally, the research findings contribute to the existing body of tourism knowledge by providing novel information regarding the psycho-synthesis of agritourists and their satisfaction process.

This thesis is concerned with student migration to the UK. The research objectives of this study are to investigate the personal, familial and social processes pertaining to international student migration and to contribute to the theorization of migration. To further its research objectives the study adopts a grounded theory approach which allows students to voice the concerns, motives and influences pertaining to their migration actions and intentions. The method of the inquiry is qualitative and is based on individual, in-depth, interviews with Greek and Chinese students at the University of Sheffield. In order to interpret and analyse its findings, this research employs the work of Pierre Bourdieu and the Life-course approach on migration. Further, these two distinct bodies of work are combined into a theoretical framework able to further social scientific understanding of migration decision-making. This study brings forward the concept of an intended migration trajectory as a theoretical tool with the potential to enhance our understanding of the migration process. Student migration is found to be a response to the individual and familial needs and ambitions generated by the context in which agents move. Individual actions and intentions are part of an effort to further needs and ambitions in multiple spheres of activity in the best possible way. Migration is best described as a process in the sense that migration partly alters the context facing individuals and families and so contributes to a partial change in agents' needs, ambitions and, ultimately, migration intentions. Overall, this study accomplishes its objectives to investigate Greek and Chinese student migration to the UK and to further social scientists' theoretical understanding of 21st century migration flows.

The thesis explores access to land with particular reference to implications for housing development in Kano metropolitan area, Nigeria. It specifically addresses access for the urban low-income groups who are more likely to experience housing difficulties because of their socioeconomic disadvantages. The thesis provides an in-depth empirical and theoretical analysis of policy formulation and implementation with respect to land and housing in Nigeria. Two research methods are utilised to generate the required data for the study; a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first part addresses the philosophical and methodological issues employed in the research and introduces the contextual background of the study. The second part presents the major empirical findings of the study. Chapter Five discusses past and present access to land in Kano metropolis. It explores how policies relate to the operation of an illegal land market and explains the implications of this for the proliferation of informal settlements. Analysis has shown that state policies have benefited most members of the Kano community. Chapter Six discusses the policy process concerning land and housing in Kano and considers the interface between policy guidelines, policy implementation and the success of the state housing programmes especially in the metropolitan area. The chapter shows that there is a wide gap between policy formulation and policy implementation, a reason that has affected the success of government land housing policies in Kano. Lapses in policy formulation, unnecessary bureaucracy, government officials playing the role of 'gatekeepers', corruption and shortages of basic working equipment were identified as major obstacles to achieving effective and efficient land allocation and housing development in Kano. Chapter Seven unravels the housing experiences of Kano residents concerning how they acquired or built their residences, the type of moral or financial assistance they utilised and their satisfaction with facilities in their respective residences. It shows how residential and neighbourhood satisfaction varies among different socio-economic groups and among households residing in different neighbourhoods. The study notes a general dissatisfaction with the government's provision of services and infrastructure in the entire metropolis.

Observers from a variety of disciplines agree that informal settlements account for the majority of housing in cities of the global South. Urban informal settlements, usually defined by certain criteria such as self-build housing, sub-standard services, and residents' low incomes, are often seen as problematic, due to associations with poverty, irregularity and marginalisation. In particular, despite years of research showing otherwise, policy and academic discourses continue to emphasise a division between the 'formal' and 'informal' city, meaning that informal settlements are often treated as outside 'normal' urban considerations. This thesis argues that the discursive construction of urban informal settlements in this way may contribute to their marginalisation, with material effects for residents, including displacement and eviction. Moving beyond static, binary characterisations of urban informal settlements, it aims to use a place-making approach to explore the discursive, spatial, social, cultural and political construction of place in this context, in order to unsettle some of the assumptions underlying these marginalising discourses. Research was carried out using a qualitative, ethnographic methodology in two case study neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico. Mexico offers fertile ground to explore these issues. Despite an extensive regularisation programme, around 50 per cent of urban dwellers live in colonias populares, neighbourhoods with informal characteristics. The research found that local discourses reveal complex and ambivalent views of colonias populares, which both reproduce and undermine binary categorisations relating to 'informality'. In particular, local policies construct colonias populares in certain ways which may perpetuate their marginalisation, but also reveal the complexities of power relations affecting neighbourhoods within the city. However, it is a focus on residents' own place-making activities that hints at prospects for rethinking urban informal settlements. By capturing these messy, dynamic and contextualised processes that construct urban informal settlements as places, the analytical lens of place-making offers a view of the multiple influences which frame them. Informed by perspectives from critical social geography which seek to unsettle binaries and capture the 'ordinary' nature of cities, this thesis suggests imagining urban informal settlements differently, in order to re-evaluate their potential contribution to the city as a whole.

Since the emergence of modern day geodemographics, population geography has witnessed a renaissance in the area of policy related spatial analysis. These classifications group areas on the basis of similarity into cluster units which define their demographic and social characteristics. The methods used to create these systems combine geographic thought and theory with statistical manipulations of multivariate data. There is currently paucity in the development and use of geodemographic systems in developing countries due to multiple related factors particularly data availability and access. This thesis argues that the developing world has a lot to benefit from geodemographic systems especially in areas of public policy making. The aim of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive description of the decisions made during the creation of two area segmentation systems - one for Nigeria and the other for the Philippines. The systems are accompanied by detailed user guides with visuals and pen portraits In addition to developing the two systems, examples of how the systems can be used to inform policy are presented in the areas of education, gender parity and maternal and child health care. It is hoped that the creation of these systems will mark the beginning of a long awaited proliferation of geodemographic systems to developing countries.

Many studies have demonstrated that improvements in infrastructure have been effective in reducing inequalities due to poverty. The Brazilian Government has invested a significant amount of resources to improve access to sanitation facilities in the municipalities in Brazil in the last decade. One of these programmes is the Bahia Azul programme of sanitation, which aimed to supply sanitation for all the population in the City of Salvador and the surrounding areas. In this programme, households have to pay the costs of the sewer connected to household excreta disposal to treatment plants. So far, models applied to sanitation studies were either misspecified, presenting serious bias, or did not demonstrate the causal relationship among variables. The objective of this study is to assess the demand for sanitation in Salvador, with focus on determinants of the choice for types of connections. Sanitation was assessed as a function of the objective variables (socioeconomic and demographic, alternative attributes) and non-observed variables, defined in this study as perception and attitude. The Hybrid Choice Model was the theoretical model used in this analysis. A questionnaire was administered to 721 households. The model was estimated using a sequential estimation, associating a latent model (MIMIC) to a mixed logit model. The analysis showed that the inclusion of latent variables in the model increased the magnitude and significance of the estimation of demand. Results indicated that the more educated' and wealthy household tended to choose a system of sanitation. The attributes of usefulness, suitableness, convenience, and healthy, not the latrine and connection themselves, were what the households really cared about. The results of my investigation supported the appropriateness of the Hybrid model for demand evaluation: latent variables incorporated to a discrete choice model improved the explanation of household behaviour, and filled the gap between behavioural theory and discrete choice models applied to sanitation.

The main aims of this study were to "develop and test a classification system for sustained village sanitation uptake" and to "identify and confirm which village-level factors influence the sustained uptake of latrines". Household survey data are generally considered to be more reliable than administrative data, and in order to monitor development and identify the needs of specific locations, there is a need to be able to obtain data at a neighbourhood level rather than district or ward level. The data collection strategy developed for Phase 1 enabled household data to be collected by each village for all households, rather than a small sample, with minimal instruction from District Government staff. These data were entered onto computer and combined to generate village sanitation profiles. Individual village sanitation profile graphs (latrine acquisition curves (Smith 1988)) were produced and adding trend lines to these demonstrated that both individual village sanitation coverage levels and the rates of change of coverage could be easily quantified and thus compared. Categories of high, medium and low coverage were established and rates of change in sanitation coverage were observed to be falling, rising or constant. Combining these village sanitation characteristics led to the proposed village classification system for sustainability. Each village was duly classified as having sustained, intermediate or unsustained sanitation. The perspective of villagers, village leaders, District Government and WaterAid staff were sought and combined to formulate a list of factors perceived to influence local sanitation uptake. The sustainability classification system enabled the subsequent testing of these factors in both sustained and unsustained sanitation villages to confirm which factors proved to be statistically significant. Both physical and social factors proved to be significant for sustainable sanitation though only the social factors were seen to have the potential for influence or change. The key findings were: » Villages were able to successfully collect their own historical household sanitation data with minimal input from District Government staff. » The greatest increase in overall District sanitation coverage would result from enabling those villages classified as having intermediate or unsustained sanitation to reach their individual village MDG targets. » Replacing full/collapsed latrines is happening across the study area but not always straight away. » Sharing of household latrines between two or more households is commonplace. » Physical determinants of sustained sanitation relate to village size/status, housing density/spread, level of infrastructure, remoteness of services, distance to an urban centre, and level of bush cover within the village. Social determinants of sustained sanitation relate to the quality of village leadership, level of activity of the Village Health Committee, openness of local people to new ideas, education level of village, exposure to more than one sanitation intervention.

This research aims to investigate how destination images relating to Iran are formed pre-visit and (in most cases) reconfigured post-visit by British cultural tourists. In particular it explores how a range of different discourses of Iran/Persia are (re )produced by the British media, Iranian tourism suppliers and British cultural tourists themselves, these being the discourse of Iran-as-Polity, Iran-as-Society and Iran-as-Persia. I looked into this area of tourism research from a social constructionist perspective, conducting qualitative research - interviews, discourse analysis, visual analysis - which has enabled me to investigate the concept of destination image formation from a relatively novel perspective compared to most previous studies. The study shows that while the media-driven discourse of Iran-as-Polity dominates pre-visit, the tourist-produced discourse of Iran-as-Society dominates during and post-visit, while the discourse of Iran-as-Persia is present at all stages, but is reinforced by an actual visit to the country. Educational capital emerges as a key component in enabling cultural tourists to challenge the discourse of Iran-as-Polity and develop alternative destination images.